Of Omaha, Oats, And Ovations

The International Omaha Lands the FEI World Cup.

Three years from now, a very special group of athletes will board a chartered flight in Belgium bound for Eppley Airfield. And when the cadre of world-class competitors strap on the proverbial feedbag for an in-flight meal somewhere over the Atlantic, they’ll be strapping on…well, actual feedbags.

Belgium will be the embarkation point for the European contingent of horses that will vie for the 2017 FEI World Cup Jumping and Dressage Finals at the CenturyLink Center Omaha.

Omaha beat out London, Hong Kong, and the Dutch city of ‘s-Hertogenboscht to land the event—the grandest stage in the world of equestrian jumping and dressage (pronounced dress-AHGE). The World Cup will be hosted by The International Omaha, which has held equestrian jumping events of the same name in each of the last three years at the CenturyLink Center Omaha.

“I care about horses and I care about Omaha,” says Lisa Roskens, “and I wanted to bring the two of them together.” Roskens is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Burlington Capital Group. “These are two things that I’ve worked really hard to develop—my sport and my city—and now people all over the world are excited about Omaha. To host the sport’s premier event in our own little town is a feeling that is…indescribable.”

The World Cup will feature four days of competition surrounded by a weeklong celebration of Omaha as individual champions are crowned in both jumping and dressage.

In preparation for the World Cup, The International Omaha 2015 will introduce dressage for the first time. Dressage is the sport where horse and rider are expected to perform from memory a series of intricate, predetermined movements—think something akin to ballet, but for horses.

The 2015 FEI World Cup will be held in Las Vegas the week before The International Omaha, and Roskens expects a strong presence of international competitors anxious to check out the facilities, city, and vibe of the site of the next American-hosted World Cup.

“Every year of the International Omaha has been better than the last,” Roskens says, “Next year’s event will be huge for us, and 2017 will be off the charts.”

Roskens’ passion for horses perhaps explains how a fledging group could launch an event like The International Omaha and—a mere three short years later—find themselves being awarded the bid for the most luminous spotlight in the world of equestrian sports.

“Every instinct of a horse is to shed anything that attempts to climb up on its back,” Roskens says. “But they allow us to do just that. We climb on their backs to do all the crazy things we ask them to do. It goes against the very essence of their being, but the result—that harmony when horse and rider are one—is absolutely magnificent.”

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